If it doesn’t work, you can always run bcdedit /delete {guid} /cleanup and try again.

Here’s what my Boot Manager (pressing F8 when I start up my machine) looks like now:

Now, I can boot up with my VHD mounted. Am I running a Virtual machine? No. I’m running Windows, on the hardware, with only the DISK Virtualized. I don’t work for that team, but I’m guessing I’m losing 3-5% (that number came out of my butt) on the disk side – and nothing anywhere else. How do I know? Well, Windows Experience is smart enough to keep me from checking (although I could use another disk tester tool, but I’ll leave that as an exercise to the Reader.).

I notice that Disk Management still gives me access to my was-C: drive, even though the VHD is now my C. My hardware C: drive got moved down, and it’s E: now. Nice than I can still see it!

What does the Device Manager say? It says the Msft Virtual Disk SCSI Disk Drive is there! That’s the only “virtual” thing going on here. Notice I’ve still got my actual Video Drivers (running multiple monitors across multiple display drivers). All my stuff is there, because I’ve got, forgive me, less virtual and more machine.

Hey, are those my four processors and my 8 gigs or RAM? Ah, yes, they are.

Love it. I’m going to use the hell out of it.

A few caveats. One, I haven’t figured out how boot off a VHD that is on USB or External Drive. I’m looking into it. It may be because there’s no drive letter assigned yet, or that I’m an idiot. We’ll see. Second, doing this makes your VHD less portable, because if you move it inside Virtual PC or to another machine, all the devices will freak out and try to reinstall (or maybe just not work) so be aware of that.